talking; putting up and pulling down. Rotha hesitated.
"Madame, before I answer I should like to ask another question. What ought I to do if I see something done which you have forbidden?"
A quick sharp glance came her way now.
"What have you seen?"
"That is just what I do not know whether I ought to tell you. I thought, perhaps it would be the best way for me to go where I could not see it."
"Why?" said Mrs. Mowbray dryly.
"Then I should not be sharing the wrong. I suppose, more than that is not my affair. I am afraid it would be troublesome to move me."
"Any change is troublesome in a house like this," the lady answered; and Rotha stood still, not knowing how to go on. Mrs. Mowbray stepped up on the library steps to arrange some books on the upper shelves; and till she came down she did not speak again.
"You are quite right to mention no names and give no stories," she said then. "I always doubt an informer. And you are quite right also in refusing to countenance what is wrong. I will give you another room, my dear." She took Rotha in her arms and kissed her repeatedly. "Have I found a friend?" she said.
"You, madame?" said Rotha. "I cannot do anything for _you;_ but you have done everything for me."
"You can give me love and truth that is all we any of us can give to one another, isn't it? The ways of shewing may be different.--Where are you going to spend the holidays?" she said with a change of tone.
"I don't know, madame. I have not thought about it."
"Will you spend them with me?"
Joy flamed up in Rotha's eyes and lips and cheeks. "O madame!--if I may."
"I expect half a dozen of the young ladies will stay with me. Here is a note that came for you, from your aunt."
She gave Rotha an open note to read. It contained the request that Rotha might spend the time between Christmas and New Year's Day at her house, but not those days. Rotha read and looked up.
"Write," said Mrs. Mowbray, "and say to your aunt that I have invited you and that you have accepted the invitation, for the whole holidays."
The smile and the glance of her sweet eye were bewitching. Rotha felt as if she could have stooped down and kissed her very garments.
CHAPTER XVII.
BAGS AND BIBLES.
Those holidays were a never-to-be-forgotten time in Rotha's life. Christmas eve, and indeed a day before, there was a great bustle and rush of movement in the house, almost all the boarders sweeping away to their various homes. Their example was followed by the under teachers; only Miss Blodgett remained; and a sudden lull took place of the rush. A small table was drawn out in the middle room; and Mrs. Mowbray came to dinner with a face, tired indeed, but set for play. The days of the ordinary weeks were always thick set with business; the weight of business was upon every heart; now it was unmitigated holiday. Nobody knew better how to play than Mrs. Mowbray; it was in her very air and voice and words. Perhaps some of this was assumed for the sake of others; a large portion of it was unquestionably real. The table was festive, that Christmas eve; flowers dressed it; the dessert was gay with confections and bonbons, as well as ice cream; and there was a breath of promise and anticipation in Mrs. Mowbray's manner that infected the dullest spirits there. And some of the girls were very dull! But Rotha's sprang up as if she had been in paradise.
"Are you going to hang up your stocking, Miss Blodgett?"
Miss Blodgett bridled and smiled and was understood to express her opinion that she was "too old."
"'Too old!' My dear Miss Blodgett! One is never too old to be happy. I intend to be as happy as ever I can. I shall hang up _my_ stocking; and I expect everybody to put something in it."
"You ought to have let us know that beforehand, madame," said Miss Blodgett.
"Let you know beforehand!" said Mrs. Mowbray, while her eye twinkled mischievously: "My dear friend! I don't want any but free-will offerings. You didn't think I was going to levy black mail? did you? Miss Blodgett! I thought you knew me better."
Whether she were in jest or in earnest, Rotha could not make up her mind. She was laughing at Miss Blodgett, that Rotha saw; but was it all nonsense about the stocking and the gifts? Mrs. Mowbray's sweet eyes were dancing with fun, her lips wreathed with the loveliest archness; whatever she meant, Rotha was utterly and wholly bewitched. She ran on for some little time, amusing herself and the girls, and putting slow Miss Blodgett in something of an embarrassment, she was so much too quick for her.
"Are you going to hang up your stocking, Miss Emory?"
Miss Emory in her turn smiled and bridled, and seemed at a loss how to answer.
"Miss Eutable?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Certainly. We will all hang up our stockings. Do you think by the chimney is the best place, Louisa?"
The girl addressed was a little girl, left in Mrs. Mowbray's care while her parents were in Europe. She dimpled and declared she supposed one place was as good as another.
"But you believe Santa Claus comes down the chimney?"
"I always knew better, Mrs. Mowbray."
"You did! You knew better! She knew better, Miss Blodgett. We are growing so wise in this generation. Here's little Miss Farrar does not believe in Santa Claus. I think that's a great loss. Miss Carpenter, what do you think about it? Do you think it is best to let the cold daylight in upon all our dreams?"
"The sun is not cold, madame."
"But the sun leaves no mystery."
"I do not like mystery, madame?"
"You don't? I think the charm of the stocking hung up, is the mystery. To listen for the sound of the reindeers' feet on the roof, to hear the rustle of the paper packages as Santa Claus comes down the chimney--there is nothing like that! I used to lie and listen and cover up my eyes for fear I should look, and be all in a tremble of delight and mystery."
"I should have looked," said Rotha.
"You must never look at Santa Claus. He don't like it."
"But I always knew it was no Santa Claus."
"Do you think you, and Miss Farrar here, are the happier for being so wise?"
"I do not know," said Rotha laughing. "I cannot help it."
"Mrs. Mowbray," said Miss Blodgett, "Miss Carpenter is the only young lady in the house who says 'do not' instead of don't; have you noticed?"
"My dear Miss Blodgett! don't you go to preaching up preciseness. Life is too short to round all the corners; and there are too many corners. You must cut across sometimes. I say 'don't,' myself."
She went now into a more business-like inquiry, how the several young ladies present expected to spend the next day; and as they rose from table, asked Rotha if she would like to drive out with her immediately. She had business to attend to.
The drive, and the business, of that Christmas eve remained a vision of unalloyed pure delight in Rotha's memory for ever. The city was brightly lighted, at least where she and Mrs. Mowbray went; the streets were full of a gay crowd, gay as one sees it at no other time of all the year but around the holidays; everybody was buying or had bought, and was carrying bundles done up in brown paper, and packages of all sizes and shapes; and everybody's face looked as if there were a pleasant thought behind it, for everybody was preparing good for somebody else. Mrs. Mowbray was on such errands, Rotha immediately saw. And the shops were such scenes of happy bustle; happy to the owners, for they were driving a good trade; and happy to the customers, for every one was getting what he wanted. A large grocer's was the first place Mrs. Mowbray stopped at; and even here the scene was exceedingly attractive and interesting to Rotha. It was not much like the little corner grocery near Jane Street, where she once used to buy half pounds of tea and pecks of potatoes for her mother; although the mingled scents of spices and cheese did recall that to mind; the spices and the cheese here were better, and the odours correspondingly. Rotha never lost the remembrance, nor ever entered a large house of this kind again in her life without a sweeping impression of the my
sterious bustle and joy of that Christmas eve.
Mrs. Mowbray had various orders to give. Among them was one specially interesting to Rotha. She desired to have some twenty or thirty pounds of tea done up in half pound packages; also as many pounds of sugar; loaf sugar. As she and Rotha were driving off she explained what all this was for. "It is to go to my poor old people at the Coloured Home," she said. "Did you ever hear of the Old Coloured Home? I suppose not That is an institution for the care of worn-out old coloured people, who have nobody to look after them. They expect to see me at Christmas. Would you like to go with me to-morrow, after church, when I go